The Meaning of Muslim Identity in Princely Hyderabad: From the Telangana

Armed Struggle to the Police Action

A thesis

submitted by

Sairah Husain

In partial fulfillment of the requirements

for the degree of

Master of Arts

in

History

Tufts University

May 2013

Adviser: Ayesha Jalal

ii

Abstract:

In this MA thesis, I examine the history of the princely state of Hyderabad from 1927 to

1951. Drawing from memoirs, newspapers, oral histories, and autobiographies, I find that in

these years leading up to the forcible accession of Hyderabad to the Indian Union in a police

action, communitarian rhetoric was employed in the Indian nationalist and non-nationalist cases

so as to mobilize religious communities for politically expedient ends. However, in the case of a

peasant revolt in the state, the Telangana Armed Struggle, communitarianism as a phenomenon

did not play a role as the movement was multi-faith in character. Furthermore, during this

struggle, religious identity, particularly Muslim identity, was articulated and framed in class

terms.

iii

Table of Contents:

Chapter 1: Introduction – Hyderabad in

Princely State Scholarship

1

Chapter 2: Indian Nationalist Narratives and

Hyderabad – “Communalism” within the State

11

Chapter 3: Pakistan and Hyderabad – Muslim

Identity and Differing Narratives of

Events in Hyderabad Leading up to

the Police Action

19

Chapter 4: Muslim “Solidarity”: The Case of

Hyderabad India during the 1946-

1951 Telangana Armed Struggle

28

Chapter 5: Conclusions

41

Bibliography

45

1

Chapter 1: Introduction – Hyderabad in Princely State Scholarship

Princely State Historiography:

Scholarship on Indian princely states has transformed over the past three decades. The

early 1990’s saw the introduction of the “hollowing of the crown” argument with historian and

anthropologist Nicholas Dirks’ work on the small princely state of Pudukkottai. Dirks’ main

intervention in princely state scholarship was to argue that in the case of Pudukkottai between

the fourteenth and the twentieth centuries, there was a “hollowing of the crown” that saw Indian

princes as mere pawns with little political power and control over their territories1. However,

Dirks’ work focused on a small state that was geographically far removed from other Indian

princely states, making it difficult for general analysis of a “hollowing of the crown” to apply to

the other Indian princely states2.

With an argument that is diametrically opposed to Nicholas Dirks, Mridu Rai argues in

favor of a more expansive analysis with her specific focus on Kashmir. Rai argues that in fact, as

in the case of Kashmir, princes were not actually politically emasculated3.

Eric Beverley uses these diametrically opposed trends of scholarship as a jumping off

point to discuss sovereignty in Hyderabad as he characterizes Hyderabad not as a theatrical client

state nor a highly centralized autocracy4. Beverley argues that Hyderabad, in the late nineteenth

and early twentieth centuries, should be characterized as having layered sovereignty. Layered

sovereignty holds state authority as a “negotiated” domain in which political authority was

1 Nicholas B. Dirks, The Hollow Crown: Ethnohistory of an Indian Kingdom. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), introduction. 2 Ian Copland, The Princes of India in the Endgame of Empire, 1917-1947. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 33. 3 Mridu Rai, Hindu Rulers, Muslim Subjects: Islam, Rights, and the History of Kashmir. (Princeton: Princeton

University Press, 2004), introduction. 4 Eric Beverley, “Muslim Modern: Hyderabad State, 1883-1948” (PhD diss., Harvard University, 2007), 8.

2

expanded by incorporating smaller political agents under the umbrella of their sovereignty5.

While Beverley cites such a theoretical framework as applicable to pre-colonial South Asia, he

applies layered sovereignty to Hyderabad during the aforementioned time period because his

argument about Hyderabad city as an imperial though not quite colonial space is contingent upon

employing layered sovereignty as an analytical framework. Beverley examines ideology,

institutions of governance, and urban history through the lens of layered sovereignty.

In his book on princely North India, Ian Copland argues that princes should be brought to

the fore in analysis of the states and not merely seen as lacking agency, as promulgated by

Nicholas Dirks’ hollow crown argument. Critiques of his work cite his focus on the “high

politics” of princely states in colonial India6. Copland contends that there is little evidence to

show that the princes were brought down by revolutionary popular pressure “from below”. In

this thesis, I disagree with Copland’s contention and instead argue that revolutionary popular

pressure in the Hyderabad case in the form of the Telangana Armed Struggle contributed to

bringing down Nizam Osman Ali Khan and forcibly integrating the erstwhile princely state into

India.

I will further nuance this argument by drawing upon Dick Kooiman’s work as related to

“communalism” in the princely states. Kooiman attributes the rise of “communalism” in

Hyderabad state to the activities of the Hindu reformist Arya Samaj organization’s shuddhi drive

in the 1930’s. Kooiman defines “communalism” as a “harnessing of religious differences

between groups of people for secular ends7.” In chapter two, I will engage with Kooiman’s main

claim related to “communalism” in Hyderabad that states “communalism” was not transferred

5 Beverley, “Muslim Modern”, 10.

6 Manu Bhagavan, “Princely States and the Making of Modern India: Internationalism, Constitutionalism, and the

Postcolonial Moment.” Indian Economic Social History Review (2009): 428. 7 Kooiman, Communalism, 4.

3

from British India to the states. Instead, forces of “communalism” grew in both British as well as

Princely India and such forces could become interconnected and in many cases, reinforced each

other8.

My Main Intervention:

In this thesis, I will use Chitralekha Zutshi’s observation that princely state

historiography is divided into two subfields – those arguments that address the political and

constitutional developments in the states and those that address subaltern, women, and peoples’

movements in the states. She makes the significant point that princely state scholarship no longer

exists marginal to South Asian history9. In my argument, I will examine Hyderabad during the

late colonial period and I will illustrate how the Telangana Armed Struggle did not operate

marginally to South Asian history, but rather played a central role in the integration of

Hyderabad into the Indian Union – a significant fact in the more recent history of South Asia.

This is a novel intervention because much of the literature on the struggle treat it as strictly a

people’s movement. As few of these sources address the issue of Muslim identity and class

consciousness, I will delve into this topic in this thesis. Specifically, I ask how do identities get

articulated and framed? I find that such articulation and framing was done through

communitarian discourse that painted the majority and minority community – Hindu and Muslim

– as largely antagonistic communities that shared a relatively harmonious past in the state but

have since the late 1930’s become increasingly oppositional to one another. Also, what were the

other roles of communitarianism? I find that communitarian rhetoric was employed in the Indian

nationalist and non-nationalist cases so as to mobilize religious communities for politically

8 Dick Kooiman, Communalism and Indian Princely States: Travancore, Baroda, and Hyderabad in the 1930’s, (New

Delhi: Manohar Publications), 226. 9 Chitralekha Zutshi, “Re-Visioning Princely States in South Asian Historiography: A Review,” Indian Economic & Social History Review, 301.

4

expedient ends. Furthermore, I ask, what does Telangana tell us about what has gone on with

Muslims in Hyderabad? And, was Muslim identity instrumentally invoked or was this religious

identity intrinsic to class identity? Lastly, what is the Telangana take on the Police Action? I

find that in the case of a peasant revolt in the state, the Telangana Armed Struggle,

communitarianism as a phenomenon did not play a role as the movement was multi-faith in

character.

In this thesis, through an analysis of letters, autobiographies, memoirs, newspapers, and

poetry, I find that the Telangana Armed Struggle played a key role in Hyderabad’s forced

accession to India and religious identity, particularly Muslim identity, was intrinsic to class

identity. Lastly, religious identity was also articulated and framed in class terms.

Background on the History of Hyderabad State and Its Key Political Players:

Revisionist scholarship on the nature of the Mughal Empire argues for the

decentralization of the polity and the emergence of regional successor states such as Bengal and

Awadh. In addition to Bengal and Awadh, Hyderabad Deccan was among these successor states.

Founded in 1724 by Nizam Asaf Jah I, Hyderabad occupied a special position in the Deccan

Plateau in south-central India, as it was buttressed by various kingdoms that were antagonistic to

it. In his Modern Asian Studies article, historian Munis D. Faruqi argues that it is necessary to

distinguish the early history of Hyderabad from its later nineteenth century counterpart because

while the former was “dynamic, innovative, and strong enough to hold off a range of regional

enemies”, the latter is seen as a “ramshackle state with weak political, social, and military

institutions10

.”

10 Munis D. Faruqi, “At Empire’s End: The Nizam, Hyderabad, and Eighteenth-Century India,” Modern Asian Studies (2009): 5.

5

My narrative covers the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It was during this

period that the Muslim character of the state’s ruling structure became intensified and political

and communitarian conflict grew as a result of internal political events. Hyderabad was a large

princely state second in size to Kashmir in the north, and with a majority of Hindu subjects ruled

over by a nizam belonging to the minority Muslim community.

The Indian subcontinent during the phase of the late colonial period was administered

both directly and indirectly, the latter through the six hundred-odd princely states. It was during

this phase that the British were on their way out of India. Paramountcy was the legal doctrine

that allowed the system of British residents at the imperial courts, the regulation of successions,

and British control over the states’ foreign affairs11

. It is in the case of paramountcy that

sovereignty becomes interesting to analyze. Specifically, in Hyderabad, sovereignty did indeed

lie with the personality of the prince, Nizam Osman Ali Khan, the last ruler of the state, but this

fact soon came to change as a result of the state-allied ruling party, the Majlis Ittehad-ul-

Muslimeen’s policies.

The Majlis Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen

My narrative begins in 1927 with the founding of the Majlis Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen12

goes

through 1948 with the forced integration of Hyderabad into the Indian Union, and ends in 1951

with the conclusion of the Telangana Armed Struggle that contributed to the state’s integration.

As for the Majliis, historian Narendra Luther describes it as a “cultural-religious organization”

that soon started “developing on the lines of the Muslim League in British India reflecting a

similar Muslim communalism within the state13

.” Such an analysis of the character of the Majlis

and its association with the “communal” Muslim League suggests an applicability and

11

Copland, The Prince of India in the Endgame of Empire, 15. 12 Henceforth, the Majlis. 13 Narendra Luther, Hyderabad: A Biography (Oxford, 2006), 221.

6

association of religiously informed politics of identity with the pejorative other of Indian

nationalism. This is a theme that continues in the literature on Hyderabad’s history. Returning to

the characterization of the Majlis, Dick Kooiman in his book on “communalism” in princely

India calls the Majlis a “socio-religious organization of local Muslims intended to bring together

all Muslims without regard to sect14

.” In fact, the Majlis is more accurately described as a

Muslim cultural-religious organization allied with the Nizam’s government that became

increasingly chauvinistic in character as communitarian conflict amplified in the state in the

1930’s. As for its ideals, the organization’s founder, Bahadur Yar Jang, had “reduced the Nizam

from the personification of sovereignty to its mere symbol,” by propagating the view that “power

resided not in the person of the ruler but in the community of Muslim believers who allowed him

to rule15

.” Following this logic, Hyderabad, according to the Majlis, should be declared a Muslim

state in which every Muslim “became a participant and a stakeholder in sovereignty16

.”

Bahadur Yar Jang died in 1944. One of his most significant successors was Kasim Razvi

who formed the Razakars, the paramilitary wing of the Majlis. It was under Razvi that the Majlis

became more extreme in character. The Majlis was opposed to accession to India in 1947 and the

leader who succeeded Bahadur Yar Jang, Kasim Razvi, advised the Nizam to “enter into

relations with Pakistan before it was too late17

,” to the effect of acceding to non-contiguous,

geographically far-removed Pakistan. Understanding how ludicrous such a suggestion was, the

Nizam labeled him as “mad” and a “blackguard18

.”

Opposition Political Parties

14 Dick Kooiman, Communalism and Indian Princely States: Travancore, Baroda, and Hyderabad in the 1930’s, 183. 15 Ibid, 183. 16

Narendra Luther, Hyderabad: A Biography, 222. 17

Z.H. Zaidi, Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah Papers – The States: Hyderabad, Jammu and Kashmir, Vol. IX. (Islamabad: Government of Pakistan), xiii. 18 Z.H. Zaidi, Jinnah Papers, xiv.

7

A number of political organizations began to be founded with goals of bettering the

economic and social plight of the majority Hindu community in the state. The Andhra

Mahasabha was formed in 1936. This organization became the cover organization of the banned

Communist Party of India (CPI) who was the vanguard of the peasant Telangana Armed

Struggle.

While the Arya Samaj was established as early as 1892, in 1938 it came under attack by

the Nizam’s government as it issued orders that the Arya Samaj could not set up kunds –

fireplaces for prayers – without the express permission of the government19

. Following this

policy, the famous 1938 Satyagraha was launched that saw an increasing polarization between

the Hindu and Muslim communities in the state.

The Hyderabad State Congress was founded in September 1938 with the goal of

responsible government under the aegis of the Nizam and the Asaf Jahi dynasty20

.”

The object of the Hyderabad State Congress is attainment by the people of Responsible

Government under the aegis of H.E.H. the Nizam and the Asaf Jahi dynasty. This object

is to be achieved by all peaceful and legitimate means and by promoting national unity,

fostering public spirit and developing and organizing the intellectual, moral, economic,

and industrial resources of the country21

.

As for the term “Congress” in this secular, nationalist political party’s name, it had been

adopted to distinguish the party from the “communal or provincial movements” and to align

itself with the “constructive programme of the Indian National Congress22

.” In the manifesto of

the Hyderabad State Congress, it state to “call [the Hyderabad State Congress] “communal” is

19 Luther, Hyderabad: A Biography, 225. 20 Ibid. 21

N. Ramesan, The Freedom Struggle in Hyderabad, Vol. IV: (1921-1947), (Andhra Pradesh: The Andhra Pradesh State Committee Appointed for the Compilation of a History of the Freedom Struggle in Andhra Pradesh, 1966), 133. 22 N. Ramesan, The Freedom Struggle in Hyderabad, Vol. IV, 137.

8

therefore a travesty of facts and truth23

.” This portion of the manifesto indicates an understanding

as an association of illegitimacy with communalism. There is an immediate association of

nationalism with non-communalism as in the Hyderabad State Congress literature; it states that it

is a “purely …. non-communal political organization having nationalist as its very basis24

.” So

while the goal of the Hyderabad State Congress as its outset was responsible government under

the Nizam, the organization became banned by the Nizam at its founding and the group soon

began to advocate Hyderabad merging with the Indian union.

As a part of the ban and in order to make illegitimate the goals of the Hyderabad State

Congress, the Nizam issued a statement: “His Exalted Highness’s Government has no objection

to the establishment of political organization in the state provided these are on a strictly non-

communal basis and have no affiliation outside the state25

.” This quotation illustrates the

immediate loss of legitimacy of the Hyderabad State Congress and indicates an understanding

that the Nizam believed that this secular nationalist party inside the state was associated with the

Indian National Congress of British India.

Editor of the volume The People’s Movement in Hyderabad, Achyut Khodwe was an

adherent to the nationalist Hyderabad State Congress that advocated the state’s accession to

India. He affirms the general perception of this secular nationalist party about the “feudal,

reactionary” nature of speaking about the other states – “But so far the Indian States have been

centers of feudal reaction and autocracy26

.”

In this volume, Khodwe makes the astute observation about the Nizam’s government and

its agenda to take away legitimacy from the opposition Hyderabad State Congress. He writes

23

N. Ramesan, The Freedom Struggle in Hyderabad, Vol. IV, 146. 24

N. Ramesan, The Freedom Struggle in Hyderabad, Vol. IV, 150. 25 Achyut Khodwe, The People’s Movement in Hyderabad, (Poona: J.S. Ltd.’s Press, 1947), 34. 26 Achyut Khodwe, The People’s Movement in Hyderabad, 1.

9

that, “the word ‘communal’ was deliberately used for ‘political’ and the government was bent

upon following the political suppression27

.”

Chapter 2: Indian Nationalist Narratives and Hyderabad – “Communalism” within the

State

Indian nationalist narratives argued for the integration of Hyderabad into the Indian union

due to the feudal and exploitative nature of the state’s last nizam, Osman Ali Khan. For example,

an account about the nationalist “freedom struggle” of the state explains that, “Logically

speaking, the freedom movement in Hyderabad was a fight against the feudal-reactionary regime

which was out to destroy the unity and integrity of Free India with the active connivance of

British Imperialism28

.” So polarized had discourse developed surrounding the accession of

Hyderabad to India that most Indian nationalist accounts of the events leading up to the

accession term the accession itself Hyderabad’s “independence”. Descriptions like “the people

[of Hyderabad State] yearned to fall in line with British India,” were not uncommon29

. Politics

surrounding the accession soon became to be framed as majority Hindu community versus

minority Muslim community or “communal” in character. So in this chapter, I ask what were the

goals of such communitarian framing and rhetoric? This framing and rhetoric soon came to be

used out of political expediency and to justify, in the case of Indian nationalists, Hyderabad

acceding to India.

“Communalism” in Hyderabad:

The term “communal” is highly charged in the post-colonial environment. Its invocation

evokes a sense of immutable religious and cultural differences. While a “communal” can be

27 Achyut Khodwe, The People’s Movement in Hyderabad, 33. 28

V.H. Desai, From Vandemataram to Jana Gana Mana: Saga of Hyderabad Freedom Struggle, (Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan) 1990, 23. 29 N. Ramesan, The Freedom Struggle in Hyderabad, Vol. IV, v.

10

broadly defined as an individual pushing the interests of one religious or linguistic group, the

term in its employment in the South Asian context too often becomes construed as a specifically

Muslim. The term has been criticized as the “pejorative other of Indian nationalism,” and there is

an opposition of the “illegitimacy of communalism” versus the “legitimacy of nationalism30

”.

The term also tends to essentialize any sort of religiously-informed cultural differences, while

also immediately conflating such differences with bigotry31

.

While there are seemingly strong grounds for thinking that the minority Muslim

community benefitted from their advantageous positions in the ruling structure of the state, in

fact this was not the case. In 1931, Hindus made up more than 84% of Hyderabadi subjects,

while Muslims were just 20%, yet they dominated in the government and ruling structure of the

state. However, it is vital to note that the Hindu and Muslim communities were not “solid,

monolithic blocs32

,” but in fact they were deeply divided by caste and sect. Furthermore, it is

fallacious to classify the Hindu community as a “deprived proletariat” because, despite their

relative absence in the bureaucratic apparatus, Hindus enjoyed commercial hegemony and they

dominated the agricultural sector with 86.2% of cultivators of all kinds being Hindu33

.

Now that the communitarian characteristics in the state has been accurately illustrated, it

becomes necessary to analyze the discourse surrounding “communal” relations in the state to get

a picture of the polarization. As I will argue, communitarian rhetoric was employed in the Indian

nationalist case so as to mobilize religious communities for politically expedient ends.

30 Ayesha Jalal, “Exploding Communalism: The Politics of Muslim Identity in South Asia,” in Nationalism, Democracy, and Development: State and Politics in India, ed. Sugata Bose and Ayesha Jalal (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998-1999) 31

Ibid 32

Ian Copland, “‘Communalism’ in Princely India: The Case of Hyderabad, 1930-1940,” Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 22, No. 4 (1998) 33 Ibid.

11

To get a sense of the intensity of such rhetoric, it is helpful to analyze memoirs and

newspapers of the period leading up to the Police Action in Hyderabad. V.H. Desai, in his 1990

book Vande Mataram to Jana Gana Mana: Saga of Hyderabad Freedom Struggle, dedicates it to

Swami Ramananda Tirtha, president of the nationalist Hyderabad State Congress. Such a

dedication makes it abundantly clear that the volume will have a nationalist bias. The book

covers the period from the early 1930’s to the Police Action in September 1948.

In Desai’s later book published in 1998, The Democrat: Saga of a Jail Journal of

Hyderabad Freedom Struggle (1947-1948) (The Untold Story), he dedicates it to those who have

“spontaneously sacrificed to free MOTHER INDIA from bondage; foreign and native.”

The Democrat was an English bi-weekly of about twelve pages. Reflecting the “troubled

decade34

” the paper’s editorials “breathed fire and brimstone35

.” “The most disruptive element

however, is that the communist enthusiasts … make deep raids into Hyderabad territory, carry on

propaganda and often loot wealthy citizens before they return to the Madras Presidency36

.”

In an editorial in The Democrat, the various parties involved in the “freedom struggle” of

Hyderabad are compared. The Hyderabad state’s “non-violent struggle” along with the

Communists’ “violent struggle” has kept the government at bay37

.

In the forward to the volume, the author speaks in high flown rhetoric to describe the

state of affairs of the rulers of Hyderabad. He writes, “With the Nizam’s connivance, his alter-

ego, the megalomaniac, Kasim Razvi, had set up the Ittehad-ul-Mussulmeen (Ittehad, for short)

with a large band of fanatic storm-troopers, known as the Razakars, to terrorize and demoralize

34 Luther, Hyderabad: A Biography, 224. 35

V.H. Desai, From Vandemataram to Jana Gana Mana: Saga of Hyderabad Freedom Struggle, 21. 36

V.H. Desai, From Vandemataram to Jana Gana Mana: Saga of Hyderabad Freedom Struggle, 29. 37 V.H. Desai, The Democrat: The Saga of a Jail Journal of Hyderabad Freedom Struggle, 1947-1948, (Mumbai: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan), 1998, 48.

12

the patriotic people of Hyderabad38

.” The Razakars would attack any village suspected of

“Congress or Communist sympathy39

.” Here, the Congress and Communists are linked to one

another. There is also a link between the Hyderabad State Congress and the Communist Party of

India in the struggle for their individual aims – the Hyderabad State Congress with its desire for

accession to India and the Communist Party of India for its desire of land reclamation and

economic justice in the Telangana region. The Democrat highlights these goals in an editorial:

The Nizam of Hyderabad, the ruler of a vast principality with a population of over sixteen

million, has refused to join the Union though, it is stated negotiations are still proceeding.

A powerful people’s struggle by the State Congress and backed by the resurgent

peasantry of Telangana and the other parts, fighting to break the chains of feudal slavery,

is raging in the State. The Nizam, relying upon the support of Sardars, big Zamindars and

the bureaucracy the bulk of whom are Muslims, is seeking to crush the movements by

repression and to disrupt it by instigating communal riots40

.

It is pieces of journalism such as this ultra-Indian nationalist publication that attempted to

portray the work of the Hyderabad State Congress and Communist Party of India, as communal

in nature, even though the Communist Party’s work in Telangana was done by individuals

belonging to different faith groups. Such a portrayal was done so as to discredit each of the

parties and the movement.

Expanding upon the role of the communists in the region, Desai wrote about the plunder

the Majlis indulged in and that “the Communist activity on the Madras frontier is welcomed by

many villages because the Communists offer the only protection against Razvi’s marauding

bands41

.”

38

V.H. Desai, The Democrat: The Saga of a Jail Journal of Hyderabad Freedom Struggle, 1947-1948, xi. 39

V.H. Desai, The Democrat: The Saga of a Jail Journal of Hyderabad Freedom Struggle, 1947-1948, xii. 40 V.H. Desai, The Democrat: The Saga of a Jail Journal of Hyderabad Freedom Struggle, 1947-1948, 68. 41 V.H. Desai, The Democrat: The Saga of a Jail Journal of Hyderabad Freedom Struggle, 1947-1948, 64.

13

Desai portrays it as left up to fate that Hyderabad State Congress leader Swami

Ramananda Tirtha would have to lead the organization and fight for freedom of Hyderabad and

integration into India:

At a very critical moment in the history of the Indian people, the responsibility of leading

a freedom struggle of an all-India character fell on the Swamiji. He had to rally all the

democratic forces to assert the will of the people. He had innumerable difficulties in his

way. But despite all this, he rapidly mobilized the masses for the freedom fight, and

received tremendous response from all sections cutting across all barriers of caste, creed,

religion, region and language42

.

This quotation, particularly the last line that delineates the response from all sections

cutting across all different types of barriers suggests an association of Swami Ramananda Tirtha

with secular nationalism that cuts across all these different barriers.

Further polarizing the already fractured communitarian atmosphere leading up to the

Police Action, journalist Jagannath Rao Chandraki wrote a piece called “A Word to Muslims.” In

the piece, Chandraki writes that the Muslims of Hyderabad, especially those whom ardently

follow the Majlis, are “living in a dreamland.” He goes on to make an association between the

militant Majlis leader, Kasim Razvi, and the constitutional lawyer and Pakistan founder

Muhammad Ali Jinnah in their related aspirations for “Muslim supremacy43

.”

The Standstill Agreement and Accession:

The Standstill Agreement was the legal doctrine that mandated that Hyderabad State

surrender powers of defense, foreign affairs, and communications to the Indian Union, though

the Majlis’ paramilitary wing, the Razakars, were allowed to operate with abandon. Desai writes,

“The Razakar-menace had reached its peak. Under the pressure from his advisers, the Nizam

entered into a ‘Standstill Agreement’ on 29th

November 1947, with the Government of India44

.”

42

V.H. Desai, From Vandemataram to Jana Gana Mana: Saga of Hyderabad Freedom Struggle, 101. 43 V.H. Desai, The Democrat: The Saga of a Jail Journal of Hyderabad Freedom Struggle, 1947-1948, 69. 44 V.H. Desai, From Vandemataram to Jana Gana Mana: Saga of Hyderabad Freedom Struggle, 19.

14

In the fourth volume of The Freedom Struggle in Hyderabad, topics covered range from

the Khilafat agitation to the emergence of institutions like the Hyderabad State Congress and the

Arya Samaj. In the book’s final chapter, author N. Ramesan emphasizes the point that, “the

freedom struggle in Hyderabad formed an integral part of the freedom struggle in India45

.” This

connection of princely India to British India is significant to understand as similar discourse

lauding secular nationalism in British India came to infiltrate Hyderabad as well.

As for the Hyderabad State Congress, there is an immediate association of that specific

body with a freedom struggle in the state. Ramesan argues that, “the lifting of the ban [on the

Hyderabad State Congress] imposed eight years ago was the first victory of the freedom struggle

in Hyderabad46

.”

Ramesan identifies the main “political problem” in Hyderabad as one related mainly to

the “justification of the minority rule over the majority47

.”

1938 Satyagraha:

The 1930’s saw an increasing shift toward fractures along communitarian lines in the

state. Former Hyderabad government official Fareed Mirza, in his memoir on the Police Action,

states that he “did not like the Satyagraha movement” that the Arya Samaj and Hyderabad State

Congress launched in 1938. He describes that a change soon overtook him following his reading

of Jawaharlal Nehru’s autobiography and his “Glimpses of World history”48

, describes that year

as having “special significance in the political struggle for the attainment of democracy in the

history of the Hyderabad State49

.” He goes onto discuss how the Hyderabad State Congress, even

45 N. Ramesan, The Freedom Struggle in Hyderabad, Vol. IV, 279. 46 N. Ramesan, The Freedom Struggle in Hyderabad, Vol. IV, 280. 47

N. Ramesan, The Freedom Struggle in Hyderabad, Vol. IV, 87. 48

Fareed Mirza, Pre- and Post-Police Action Days in the Erstwhile Hyderabad State: What I Saw, Felt, and Did, (Hyderabad: Unknown Publisher, 1976), 1. 49 N. Ramesan, The Freedom Struggle in Hyderabad, Vol. IV, 50-51.

15

before its founding in the state, was condemned by the Government as a communal body as it

was seen to be under the “foreign influence” of the Indian National Congress. As a result, a

satyagraha was launched. Editor N. Ramesan describes such repression of issues that “lay latent

to receive some igniting force and grow into a sort of conflagration on the proper occasion50

.”

“October 1938 must be immortalized in the memory of the Hyderabadis, as the month in

which the smouldering embers of agitation in the minds of the people burst out, in a flame and

the intensity of Mahatma Gandhiji’s personality was felt keenly by the Nizam’s Government51

.”

In its statement of aims dated September 5, 1938, the Hyderabad State Congress

manifesto said, “The name ‘Congress’ has been adopted merely to emphasize the nationalist

basis underlying this movement as distinguished from that of communal or provincial

movements and also because most of other items of the constructed programme of the Indian

National Congress will have also to form part of the constructive programme of the State

Congress52

.”

Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and the Police Action:

N. Ramesan writes that the police action “ended the internal troubles in Hyderabad in

194853

.” This was the classic Indian nationalist aim of the period, as accession to India was the

primarily goal the Hyderabad State Congress was working toward.

Deputy Prime Minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel was the official that oversaw the

integration of the various Indian princely states into the Indian Union and it was him that was

praised for being that integrator among Indian nationalist, and him who was reviled amongst

wishers of Hyderabad independence, for doing this same task of integration.

50

N. Ramesan, The Freedom Struggle in Hyderabad, Vol. IV, 52. 51

N. Ramesan, The Freedom Struggle in Hyderabad, Vol. IV, 103. 52 N. Ramesan, The Freedom Struggle in Hyderabad, Vol. IV, 136-137. 53 N. Ramesan, The Freedom Struggle in Hyderabad, Vol. IV, 290.

16

N. Ramesan, in his Indian nationalist account of the “freedom struggle” in Hyderabad

writes that “Sardar Patel has been unjustly compared to Bismark. Sardar was of peasant stock.

Bismark belonged to the ruling aristocracy of Prussia54

.” Ramesan’s disassociation of Patel from

Otto von Bismarck is to gives the former individual greater legitimacy in a “peoples’ or freedom

struggle”, as does Ramesan’s pointing out that Patel was from a peasant background.

He goes on to write that when this “Titan” passed away on December 15, 1950:

By many of us he will perhaps be remembered as a great captain of our forces in the

struggle for freedom and as one who gave us sound advice both in times of trouble and in

moments of victory; a friend and colleague and comrade on whom one could invariable

rely, as a tower of strength which revived wavering hearts when we were in trouble55

.

Indeed Vallabhbhai Patel was lauded because he was seen as the master integrator of all

of the princely states and the one individual who united India. In a letter to Lord Louis

Mountbatten dated August 24, 1947, Vallabhbhai Patel wrote:

I have authentic information that the recent activities of the Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen are

designed almost to create a feeling of terror amongst the non-Muslim population, so that

its agitation in favour of the independence of Hyderabad with possible alliance with

Pakistan should flourish. It is a militant organization with an intensely communal appeal

and there are indications that it receives active support from responsible Muslims, both

inside and outside the Government56

.

Journalist V.H. Desai notes that on the eve of the Police Action, the CPI changed its

strategy vis-à-vis the accession of Hyderabad to India. Communist activist Puchalapalli

Sundarayya describes this switch in his book Telengana People’s Struggle and its Lessons:

So, on the eve of the ‘police action’, the [Communist] Party instructed all the areas and

guerilla squads not to come into clash with the Indian Army as long as they were

attacking the Razakars and Nizam’s armed forces, but to launch independent attacks

against Razakar and Nizam’s police camps, destroy them, seize weapons, re-equip the

squads with modern weapons and retrain them, wait for a few weeks, by which time the

attacks on the Telangana peasantry by the Indian armed forces and their landlord-

54

V.H. Desai, The Democrat: The Saga of a Jail Journal of Hyderabad Freedom Struggle, 1947-1948, xiii. 55 Ibid. 56 Z.H. Zaidi, Jinnah Papers, 40.

17

deshmukh gangs would shatter the illusions and hopes roused among the masses57

.

Actually, within a week after the entry of the Indian Army, the attacks [by the

Communist Party] began.

Initially, the armed peasantry of Telangana attacked both the Indian nationalist forces

who wanted to liquidate them so as to prevent a British India-wide communist movement, as

well as the Razakar forces, however; as mentioned above, the new instructions to stay away from

the Indian Army caused Communist Party goals to change to accession.

Fareed Mirza is the rare case of a Muslim in the historical record that calls out the

“mischief” the Razakars began to play58

. In describing his decision to leave his government job,

Fareed Mirza wrote:

Almost the whole Muslim community had been led astray by the Ithahadul Muslimeen.

They read or took news only from the Urdu press which mostly gave a one-sided

exaggerated picture. Communal passions which were already running high were being

further flared up. It was apparent that the Muslim community and the State Government

were heading towards disaster. Much bloodshed seemed to lie in store. So I felt it was the

duty of those Muslims who were conscious of the situation to raise their voice however

feeble and whatever might be the risk59

.

Chapter 3: Pakistan and Hyderabad – Muslim Identity and Differing Narratives of Events

in Hyderabad Leading up to the Police Action

In the case of narratives that were published by Hyderabadi expatriates to Pakistan

following the Police Action, identities got articulated in framed in the language of

communitarianism that fueled an increasingly acrimonious discourse on the role of Hindus and

Muslims in the state. Pakistani supported narratives took on an increasingly Muslim chauvinistic

tone that justified the Majlis’ paramilitary wing, the Razakars’, actions. What were the aims in

employing such framing and rhetoric? I argue that similar to the Indian nationalist case, such

57

V.H. Desai, From Vandemataram to Jana Gana Mana: Saga of Hyderabad Freedom Struggle, 131. 58 Fareed Mirza, Pre- and Post-Police Action Days in the Erstwhile Hyderabad State: What I Saw, Felt, and Did, 2-3. 59 Fareed Mirza, Pre- and Post-Police Action Days in the Erstwhile Hyderabad State: What I Saw, Felt, and Did, 16.

18

communitarian framing and rhetoric were employed for political expediency. Furthermore, this

communitarianism was employed for politically expedient ends.

Hyderabad and Pakistan-Supported Narratives:

Princely Hyderabad’s sovereignty, as mentioned before, envisioned by the state-allied

Muslim ruling party, the Majlis, as unitary and “Muslim nationalist” in character.

The Majlis head, Nawab Bahadur Yar Jang, became the president of the All India States’

Muslim League which he founded in 1939 and in the following year, the All India States’

Muslim League sessions would be held alongside the All India Muslim League sessions.

Hyderabad Prime Minister during the time of the Police Action, Mir Laik Ali’s (1903-

1971) memoir Tragedy of Hyderabad was published in 1962 in Pakistan, but it was banned in

India until just recently – 2012. Mir Laik Ali was considered a Prime Minister sympathetic to the

cause of the Majlis and as an industrialist, gave funds to the Bahadur Yar Jang when he was the

head of the organization60

.

In the opening to his book, Laik Ali dedicated it to “those tens of thousands dead and

many more still silently suffering for their struggle in ‘the Cause of Hyderabad.’” The majority

of the book was written during Mir Laik Ali’s imprisonment following the “fall of Hyderabad”,

as he calls the accession.

In his book’s introduction, Laik Ali’s identifies the problem he saw with the state of

politics in India. He calls the All-India Congress a “majority Hindu community” party that saw

itself as the only rightful successor to the outgoing British colonials61

. He goes on to describe the

majority-minority relations within the Indian union as a whole in that “even a hundred million

Muslims were considered by the Hindus as a mere minority to be engulfed and absorbed

60 Narendra Luther, Hyderabad: A Biography (Oxford, 2006), 223. 61 Mir Laik Ali, Tragedy of Hyderabad, (Karachi: Pakistan Co-Operative Book Society Ltd, 1962, i.

19

progressively into the Hindu cult62

.” This sort of language that emphasizes the communitarian

challenges of the Indian Union supports my claim that language and communitarian relations in

Hyderabad state realized itself in increasingly antagonistic language.

Laik Ali continues with this language in his description of Pakistan’s founder

Muhammad Ali Jinnah by describing Jinnah’s Pakistan as the “inspired genius of one man.” He

precedes the sentence by describing how Muslims may have fallen prey to the “skillful

machinations of the Congress and other Hindu political organizations….had it not been kept

united and politically conscious,” by Jinnah63

.

The then prime minister of Hyderabad discusses the “overnight growth of the much

publicized Razakar movement64

.” Following the Standstill Agreement, Laik Ali attributes this

event to further “embitter[ing] the communal feelings in the State and upset the communal

harmony to a degree that had never been experienced before65

.” He proceeds to discuss the

“believers in Marxism”, the Communist Party of India vanguard of the Telangana Armed

Struggle in Hyderabad, as taking advantage of the “resulting confusion” to “spread discontent

and disorder66

.”

In a chapter that addresses the combined objectives of the Hyderabad State Congress, the

Hindus Mahasabha, “& Others”, Mir Laik Ali exaggerates the economic advantages of the Hindu

community. He writes, “here the Hindus as a whole enjoyed very overwhelming majority; the

land, commerce and industry were almost entirely in their hands67

.” The former prime minister,

however fairly points out the aforementioned fact regarding Hindu individuals’ relative absence

62 Mir Laik Ali, Tragedy of Hyderabad, i. 63 Mir Laik Ali, Tragedy of Hyderabad, ii. 64

Mir Laik Ali, Tragedy of Hyderabad, 129. 65

Ibid. 66 Ibid. 67 Mir Laik Ali, Tragedy of Hyderabad, 30.

20

in the bureaucracy. He writes that “their representation in higher ranks of public services was

very inadequate and the high-caste Hindus particularly felt bitter over it68

.”

In describing the activities of the Razakars and their chief Kasim Razvi, Mir Laik Ali

writes that the “ill-equipped” Razakars were no match for the Indian army, a true statement, and

that, “excepting a few sporadic Communist outburst, the situation on the whole remained

peaceful69

.” This description is a gross downplay of events, particularly as related to Telangana,

as they unfolded in the year leading up to the Police Action.

In his Chapter 15: “India and the Problems of Hyderabad”, the former prime minister

returns to Hyderabad’s pre-colonial history by explaining that Hyderabad had remained a

relatively independent kingdom, whether under the Hindu or the Muslim rulers – once in the

time of Ashoka and many years later, under the Mughals, and then finally under the British70

. He

continues that it is his belief that the Hindu community of the state would benefit the utmost in a

political merger with the Indian Union as it would “subject them all to the the predominating and

powerful political, financial, and economic interests of India71

.”

In speaking about the inevitable partition of India, Mir Laik Ali does not believe it would

have been so until the middle of 1947 where he says that few Muslims and certainly no Hindus

believed that India would be divided. He describes the fear of the Hindu majority that with the

newly established Pakistan, there was a genuine fear on the part of the Congress leaders that

Hyderabad could constitute a southern wing of Pakistan. Furthermore, in the minds of Congress

members, Laik Ali argues, an independent Hyderabad would be just as dangerous because those

remaining forty-five million Muslims in India could “constitute a very material and serious

68

Mir Laik Ali, Tragedy of Hyderabad, 30. 69

Mir Laik Ali, Tragedy of Hyderabad, 81. 70 Mir Laik Ali, Tragedy of Hyderabad, 123. 71 Mir Laik Ali, Tragedy of Hyderabad, 124.

21

source of inspiration to those Muslims [in Hyderabad] and would perpetuate the Muslim culture

and defy all plans of progressively absorbing the Indian Muslims in the social and cultural fold

of the Hindus72

.”

Jinnah was on his death bed and Laik Ali could not meet him and no one else could give

an authoritative reply to Laik Ali’s query about what support Pakistan could lend to Hyderabad

in case of an attack by India73

. Mir Laik Ali escaped on March 7, 195074

.

While the account of former prime minister Mir Laik Ali takes on a rather polarized

approach to describe the conflict in Hyderabad, Fareed Mirza’s account is seemingly more

“balanced.”

In Pre and Post Police Action Days in the Erstwhile Hyderabad State: What I Saw, Felt

and Did, Fareed Mirza describes himself as “one of the seven Muslims who had openly advised

the nizam to accede to the Indian Union.” He ascribes to the view that the impetus for marching

into Hyderabad was Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s death – as the Indian Army’s Police Action

occurred only two days later. Mirza identifies himself as a government servant at the time of pre-

and post-Police Action Hyderabad, however he does not specify what specific post he held under

than that he resigned “protesting against the subversive activities of the Ithadadulmuslimeen

Razakars and the then Government’s one-sided policy75

.”

Mirza describes that at a meeting he presided over of some “respectable Muslims and

Hindus,” it was clear during that meeting in discussion about various political problems that not

all of the Hindus were satisfied. Mirza describes that these Hindus were in fact afraid of openly

complaining against any Muslims as the chauvinistic activities of the Majlis set the tone for

72

Mir Laik Ali, Tragedy of Hyderabad, 125. 73

Narendra Luther, Hyderabad: A Biography (Oxford, 2006), 276. 74 Narendra Luther, Hyderabad: A Biography (Oxford, 2006), 302. 75 Fareed Mirza, Pre- and Post-Police Action Days in the Erstwhile Hyderabad State: What I Saw, Felt, and Did, 1.

22

communitarian relations in the state. At the meeting, the local Majlis president inquired whether

any Hindus present harbored any complaint against the Razakars. No Hindu came forward to

voice their complaint, and finding matter troubling, Fareed Mirza came forward to speak. He

says that, “Among the Muslims, I was notorious as being pro-Hindu76

.” In order to erase any

presuppositions about Mirza’s political allegiances and background, he introduced his remarks

by describing his religious background as a Muslim, as well as the actual reality of the state

being an 85% majority Hindu state. He put it bluntly, “without [Hindus’] co-operation, no

administration could run77

, and that they were entitled and must be given their due share in the

state setup. The following two days, Mirza describes his disappointment, anger, and sadness,

upon learning about the Razakars’ looting and arson activities in a nearby district as well as the

police and constables’ turning a blind eye to such criminal activities. He says that the idea of

resigning his government post entered his mind following these events.

Mirza describes the Majlis as leading astray the whole Muslim community in the state

and his fellow Muslims read or took news only from the Urdu press which tended to give a “one-

sided and grossly exaggerated picture78

.” He attributes the intensification of communalism to the

activities of the Razakars by saying that the “communal passions which were already running

high were being further flared up79

.” Consequently, he felt it was his duty as a Muslim, as well as

that of other Muslims in his similar position, to raise their voice against the Razakars and

following his resignation out of protest, he was “now…free to take part in any activity [he]

liked80

.”

76 Fareed Mirza, Pre- and Post-Police Action Days in the Erstwhile Hyderabad State: What I Saw, Felt, and Did), 7. 77

Ibid 78

Fareed Mirza, Pre- and Post-Police Action Days in the Erstwhile Hyderabad State: What I Saw, Felt, and Did), 16. 79 Ibid. 80 Ibid.

23

Now that Fareed Mirza was in such a position, he approached a government official

friend of his and told him about the nefarious activities of the Razakars, especially that they were

indulging in loot and arson. However, Fareed Mirza’s main claim in his memoir is not to bring

all negative light on the Razakars’ activities. He also sheds light on the brutal treatment meted

out to ordinary Muslims following the Police Action. In a letter dated May 13, 1949, Fareed

Mirza addresses Inspector General of the Police, Hyderabad State, Mr. Jatley to bring forward

the complaint about the “most regrettable and serious thing [that] happened on 23rd

October

1948,” just a month or so following the Police Action. In the letter, Mirza writes about how some

twenty-six young Muslims were “dragged from their houses and kept under the custody of

military men.” In the evening, only three Muslims were left, while the remaining twenty-three

were taken into the jungle at night and shot dead81

.

Expanding on the carnage that ordinary Muslims faced in the days and months following

the Indian Police Action in the state, Qutubuddin Aziz, journalist and former diplomat as well as

Minsiter at the Pakisatn Embassy in London, 1978-1986 writes about the horrors inflicted upon

that community. The Murder of a State: a graphic account of India’s military invasion of the

Muslim-ruled State of Hyderabad in September, 1948, the heated debates in the British

Parliament and the UN Security Council and the post-invasion holocaust in which over 200,000

Muslims died. Aziz writes that: “I have deemed it my duty to record my memories of the now

faded glories of that magnificent Muslim-ruled Kingdom and the brutality with which newly-

independent Hindu India’s military Juggernaut murdered it in September 194882

.” Aziz basis the

majority of his narrative on the eye-witness accounts of Hyderabadis who were at the time of the

81 Fareed Mirza, Pre- and Post-Police Action Days in the Erstwhile Hyderabad State: What I Saw, Felt, and Did, 15. 82 Qutubuddin Aziz, The Murder of a State, (Karachi: The Islamic Media Corporation, 1993), 1.

24

book’s writing, settled in Pakistan. They account the “murderous events” between September 13

and 20, 1948 when such a “holocaust” took place83

.

In his book, Aziz come to some major conclusions – that the ruling Hyderabad “troika” –

the Nizam Osman Ali Khan, Prime Minister Laik Ali, and Majlis president Kasim Razvi –

“naively” pinned their hopes on the UN Security Council for them to rescue Hyderabad in the

event of India’s invasion into the state. These three individuals, according to Aziz, also seriously

overestimated the military capability of the nascent State of Pakistan to deter India’s invasion.

Lastly, a main point Aziz desires to make in his book is that the “real murderer of Hyderabad’s

independence was Muslim-baiting Sardar Vallabhhbhai Patel whose ambition, since the 1930’s,

as to destroy the Nizam and his Muslim-dominated Dominions as a surviving remnant of the

demised Mughal Empire84

.”

In this same introduction to his book, Aziz takes out lessons for those citizens of Pakistan

from the invasion of Hyderabad experience. He says that Pakistanis should realize that a

powerful section of “the Hindu polity in India has never been reconciled to the 1947 Partition,”

and that a united India – Akhand Bharat – under only Hindu rule continues to live as its

cherished goal85

. Aziz is graphic in his negative description of Police Action days deputy Prime

Minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel as he said that “Patel had tasted Muslim blood in Junagarh,

Hyderabad and Kashmir and had he lived beyond 1950k, Pakistan would have been his next

target86

.” Following this vivid characterization of Patel, Aziz warns about then present-day

(1993) India’s increased militarization and the danger Patel’s political heirs, the BJP and the

RSSS, could be to Pakistan if India’s nuclear capabilities fall into their hands. Consequently,

83

Qutubuddin Aziz, The Murder of a State, 3. 84

Qutubuddin Aziz, The Murder of a State, 6. 85 Qutubuddin Aziz, The Murder of a State, 8. 86 Ibid.

25

Aziz’s policy prescription is a strong suggestion to build up Pakistan’s armed forced and nuclear

capabilities87

.

Aziz does not betray any sense of being impartial whatsoever. In the ending of this same

introduction, he makes it clear that he has “no pretensions to the objectivity of the impartial

historian,” because him and his parents were too “deeply committed to the cause of Hyderabad’s

independence” and thus they are deeply and unapologetically partisan88

.

In his narrative, Qutubuddin Aziz describes the Majlis and its first president Nawab

Bahadur Yar Jang favorably. Specifically, he cites the organization’s founding as the “Muslims’

reaction to the subversive activities fomented against the Nizam’s Government by hawkish and

chauvinistic Hindu political and religious parties based in India89

.”

In a letter to All-India Muslim League president Muhammad Ali Jinnah, head of the

Majlis Ittehad-ul-Muslimin, Bahadur Yar Jang underscores the idea that the Hindu organizations

of the Hyderabad state received funding and support from British India90

.

The All-India Hindu Mahasabha, the Arya Sabha of Delhi, the All-India National

Congress – are all supporting them wholeheartedly. The policies for Hyderabad Hindus

are framed in British India and their programmers are worked out there; they receive

instructions and advice from the eminent thinkers of the whole of Hindu India, and the

Hindu Press all over India is at their disposal…In the meanwhile, they are determined to

augment communal tension, embitter their community against the Muslims and prepare it

for an organized and wide-spread opposition and defiance of the government91

.

Here, Bahadur Yar Jang explained to Jinnah the danger of “Hindu desire to dominate” in

Hyderabad and referred to Hindu political party actions as communal in attempts to delegitimize

the goals of the groups.

87 Qutubuddin Aziz, The Murder of a State, 8. 88

Qutubuddin Aziz, The Murder of a State, 9. 89

Qutubuddin Aziz, The Murder of a State, 37. 90 Bahadur Yar Jang letter to MAJ, June 12, 1938. 91 BYJ letter to MAJ, June 12, 1938.

26

Going further in depth to matters surrounding communalism, the role of Pakistan as

related to Hyderabad, and other matters, is editor Z.H. Zaidi of the Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad

Ali Jinnah Papers, specifically volume nine that covers the states – Hyderabad, Jammu and

Kashmir. Mountbatten believed and voiced the opinion that accession of a princely state to either

India or Pakistan was a “matter of free choice” but he ruled out the option of the states’ to

declare independence. He writes in the introduction that “Admittedly, Pakistan had no political

ambitions as far as Hyderabad was concerned, except for a strong desire to maintain the

centuries-old cultural and religious bonds that had existed between the Muslims of India and

Hyderabad92

.” Referring to the Police Action itself in a “Chronology of Important Events: 11

June 1947 to 19 September 1948,” Z.H. Zaidi uses an execution metaphor stating that from

January-May 1948, “India tightens the noose around Hyderabad to dragoon it into accession93

.”

Interestingly, in a letter dated 18 June 1947, the Nizam of Hyderabad made no qualms

about openly declaring who exactly he considered to be “enemies” of the state – Hindus. The

Nizam wrote to Mr. Jinnah that, “I considered that it was not advisable for you to come here at a

time when our enemies (I mean the Hindus) were bent on making all kinds of mischief for this or

that in order to gain their own ends…94

” This statement illustrated the extent to which polarized

discourse infiltrated, or was perhaps set by, the top most echelons of the government.

Chapter 4: Muslim “Solidarity”: The Case of Hyderabad India during the 1946-1951

Telangana Armed Struggle

Historiography:

In his seminal book on peasant insurgency that contributed to the founding of the

subaltern studies school, historian Ranajit Guha argues that we must understand “insurgency” as

92

Z.H. Zaidi, Jinnah Papers, ix. 93 Z.H. Zaidi, Jinnah Papers, xxxv. 94 Z.H. Zaidi, Jinnah Papers, 11.

27

the name of peasant consciousness in which the peasant himself is the maker of his own

rebellion. This task requires a look at the peasant as the subject of his own history. In such an

attempt, Guha’s goal is rather abstract and he also criticizes seeing peasant movements as pre-

history of socialist and communist movements in the subcontinent95

. While he might label it

elitist in nature, in fact the Telangana Armed Struggle, as a peasant movement, very significantly

impacted the course of future Communist Party of India strategies and actions.

In this chapter, I will illustrate how Muslim identity is intrinsic to class identity, and also

that religious identities were often articulated in class terms.

In 1853, Karl Marx called the native princes of India “the strongholds of the present

abominable English system and the greatest obstacles to Indian progress96

.” Despite this

accusation of India's princes as collaborationist, it is important to focus on resistance to one such

prince, the Nizam of Hyderabad during the Telangana Armed Struggle of 1946-1951, as well as

to the British overlords. The Communist Party of India was one organization that comprised the

resistance, in addition to the Comrades Association, and the Andhra Mahasabha. These

organizations had Muslim members who identified as both political radicals, in that they sought

to change the state structured deshmukh97

-system through revolutionary means, as well as

identifying as Muslims, and what it meant to be a “revolutionary Muslim” will be engaged with

in this chapter. The state-sympathizing ruling party, the Majlis Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen98

(“Council

for the Unity of Muslims” or “Muslim Unity Party”), however, was interested in maintaining the

status quo that privileged feudal lords in state administration, to uphold the chauvinistic aims of

Muslims in power in the state. The aforementioned radical political organizations were opposed

95 Ranajit Guha, Elementary Aspects of Peasant Insurgency in Colonial India, (Durham: Duke University Press), 1999, introduction. 96

Raj Bahadur Gour, Glorious Telengana Armed Struggle, (New Delhi: Communist Party Publication, 1973), 1. 97 Heredtitary collector of revenue for groups of villages 98 The Majlis from here on.

28

to the Majlis and it is fallacious to assume that all Muslims of Hyderabad state allied with the

Nizam simply because they were minority coreligionists, a portion of whom dominated state

institutions that ruled over a majority Hindu populace. In other words, “solidarity”, was not

strictly along religious lines and being Muslim as well as politically radical were not two wholly

separate identities during this time in Hyderabad. In fact, Muslim religious identity was

articulated in class terms. Furthermore, I argue that speaking up and speaking out left the

Muslim, whether as a CPI or Majlis member, in a compromised position as it meant running the

risk of being labeled a kafir (unbeliever) on one side, or a “communal” on the other. An event

that illuminates these points is the Telangana armed struggle of 1946-1951 in the princely state

of Hyderabad.

Background on British India, Hyderabad, and Telangana:

At the advent of independence from Britain and the partition of India into the Indian and

Pakistani nation-states in 1947, the former British India had experienced nearly two hundred

years of some form of subservience to British commercial interests99

or the Crown. With 565-

odd princely states in the British dominion, Hyderabad was the second largest next to Kashmir in

the north.

The jagirdari system of state patronage evolved from the time of the Delhi Sultanate of

the thirteenth century to a system of British imperial support up until the twentieth century. This

system involved a jagir, or landholder in the state receiving revenue from the land and

submitting it in taxes to the greater ruler of the state in a pledge of economic and political

loyalty. As for Hyderabad’s specific system of land tenure, it had this jagirdari system as well as

the diwani system which was similar to the ryotwari system. With the diwani system, the

landholders were not owners, but were treated as registered occupants of the land.

99 The British East India Company

29

Hyderabad in the twentieth century was composed of three subsidiary regions –

Marathwada, Karnataka, and Telangana. The first region was primarily Marathi speaking, the

second Kannada speaking, and Telangana having a majority of Telugu speakers and formed fifty

percent of the area, however; it was not until 1956 that the linguistic reorganization of the states

occurred and these demarcations were made official by the central government. Despite having a

majority of Telugu speakers, Urdu was the language of the state and its administration.

The Telangana Armed Struggle – Response to the Land Tenure System:

The Telangana Armed Struggle, the Telangana People’s Struggle, or the Telangana

Revolution was led in the rural areas by the vanguard Communist Party of India members

operating largely from Hyderabad city. The oppressive land tenure system as well as a number of

major events on the agrarian scene in Telangana in the 1930s contributed to the actual struggle.

For one, the cultivation of commercial crops transformed subsistence agriculture and

introduction of the market economy had occurred. Secondly, there was large-scale eviction of the

tenants by landholders during the 1930s and 1940s. Lastly, the number of agricultural laborers

dramatically increased and these laborers received very little compensation for their work100

. The

Andhra Mahasabha formed in 1930 was the largely Telugu speaking dominated party that raised

awareness about agricultural oppression in the countryside. Furthermore, it was also a cover

organization for the Communist Party of India that had been banned in the state at the start of the

Second World War in 1939. This organization, in 1945, resolved to overthrow the Nizam and

engage in an armed struggle to remove the jagirdari system of land ownership. The Armed

Struggle formally commenced in July 1946. The Communist Party of India recruited peasant

women to participate in the struggle and there were many women who were created into heroines

of the movement.

100 Singharoy, 71.

30

With the Partition of India into the sovereign countries India and Pakistan, Hyderabad

was expected to accede to the Indian Union as it was contiguous with it; however, the Nizam

refused to accede. In response to this refusal, as well as what the Indian army saw as increasing

chaos incited by the Communist Party of India, invaded on September 13, 1948 in a “Police

Action” just two days following Jinnah’s death. From 1947 to 1948, the village councils

achieved increasing success over landlords as the Nizam’s “administrative machinery came to a

standstill in nearly 4000 villages101

.” However, it was too difficult for the peasant armed struggle

to withstand the awesome force of the Indian army and in 1951, the Communist Party of India

politburo called off the struggle.

A lasting legacy of the struggle was the abolition of vetti or bonded labor and land was

redistributed. Tenants were given full tenancy rights and armed women successfully defended

themselves and fought back against the Razakars.

Puchalapalli Sundarayya, or Comrade PS as he was popularly known, a chief leader of

the Telangana armed struggle, describes in his account of the struggle that the Indian Union army

invaded Hyderabad on September 13, 1948 with the express purpose of “curbing Razakar

violence on the people and making the Nizam accede to the Indian Union” while also intending

to suppress “Communist violence (114).” Comrade PS notes that “ordinary Muslim people” not

those of the likes of the Razakaar leader Kasim Razvi or other deshmukhs, who actually stood

against the Nizam’s atrocious actions, “were pounced upon and untold miseries were inflicted on

them.” It was their Hindu neighbors in the villages that rescued such ordinary Muslims from the

“campaign of rape and murder indulged in by the Union armies.” He ends this section of his

account by extolling the movement and saying that “it can take pride of this important

achievement, namely, Hindu-Muslim unity in the villages just at a time when Hindu-Muslim

101 Sanghatana, 14.

31

riots could have been sparked off and could have spread like wildfire.” Lastly, he states that

where the democratic Telangana movement was weak, hatred against and attacks on Muslims

were widespread102

.

Muslim Representation in the State:

A pro-Nizam party was the Majlis Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen. They advocated that every

Muslims should raise the slogan ‘An-al Malik’, meaning “We are the rulers”. Kasim Razvi

undertook the leadership of the Majlis in 1946, and it was his Razakars, or para-military wing of

the Majlis, that inflicted notorious crimes upon the people of Hyderabad including looting, rapes,

and killings.

The Comrades Association opposed the rule of the Nizam and many progressive minded

Muslims joined the Association. When the Communist Party was banned from 1939 (the start of

the War) to 1942, the Comrades Association functioned as a platform for communists103

.

The Comrades Association was the organization representing the CPI in Hyderabad city.

Gulam Hyder, Raj Bahadur Gour, and Makhdoom Mohiuddin were its chief members.

Connecting the rural to the urban, documents by the Communist Party of India’s

politbureau said that Telangana and other such struggles are only partial struggles in that they

can only be fully realized when “the working class in the cities is able to capture power” and

only then can “agrarian struggles […] develop up to the point of liberation104

.”

To get at this issue of Muslim identity, representation, and solidarity, I will analyze a pair

of Muslim sisters, Jamalunnisa Begum and Razia Baja involved in the Communist Party of India

during the struggle as well as Makhdoom Mohiuddin, the revolutionary poet and activist – also a

102

PS, 189. 103 Sanghatana, 9. 104 CPI docs, 306.

32

communist. I have chosen these three figures due to ease of these sources to express the religious

identity of the figures that I am focusing on.

Jamalunnisa Baji and Razia Begum – Communist Party of India Sisters:

Jamalunnisa Baji (1911-2012) or “Baji”, and Razia Begum were two Muslim sisters that

pledged loyalty to the Communist Party of India. Their interview is documented in a collection

of oral histories called 'We Were Making History...': Life Stories of Women in the Telangana

People's Struggle. They are significant as their home was “practically a center of radical activity

in the city at that time105

.” The sisters’ oral history selection can be divided into two main parts –

one that focuses on Muslim social culture revolving around the issue of purdah and one that

focuses on the leftist culture of political activism in Hyderabad during their lives.

Baji declared, “We were labeled kaffirs very early. In 1928 we were 12 or 13 years old.

We bought Nigar and read it. It influenced all of us. The swadeshi movement also influenced

us106

.” Baji's statement regarding her and her sister being labeled kaffirs, presumably by fellow

Muslims, is illuminating as it sets up the context in how Muslim membership to the Communist

Party of India is viewed by other Muslims. Clearly, there was an impression of CPI members as

atheists due to the opposition to religion as a part of Communist beliefs. Jamalunnisa Baji goes

on to describe how a Brahmin boy used to come to the house to teach Razia English and she

remarks that “very few girls were educated in those days107

.” Interestingly, while Razia Begum

describes the lively literary activities flourishing in her and her sister's home, she mentions that

the two of them did not read much of Marxist literature. Regarding religious rituals, Razia stated:

105

Sanghatana, 278. 106 Sanghatana, 172. 107 Sanghatana, 172.

33

“Yes, I prayed from my seventh class. I learnt to recite the Quran. I kept the fasts and

performed Namaz108

. When I came to college I slowly gave up everything – all these

rituals. I felt God and rituals were different. That was the influence of the articles and the

discussion in Nigar109

.

Here, Razia Begum explicitly states that she went from being more concerned with daily

Muslim rituals to becoming more apathetic when it came to such rituals as her level of formal

education advanced. Jamalunnisa Baji goes on to say that during a religious function, she and her

sister would propagate their new found beliefs that the “content of religion did not lie in these

rituals110

.” Furthermore, Baji stated, “we referred to Seerat-un-Nabi111

which had been written

after the time of the Prophet and offered different interpretations.” Returning to the issue of

defining what a “Muslim” is in the context of this historical event, the Telangana Armed

Struggle, these two sisters' stories illustrate the tension between the ritualistic and rationalistic

articulations of the religion as exemplified by the daily prayers and the Nigar publication for

examples. So in this case, Razia Begum shows that Muslim can mean one that adheres to the

ritualistic aspects of the faith as well as what she transformed later to – someone who discards

the ritualistic aspects of the faith to focus more on “rationalistic” aspects as delineated in the

Nigar publication, while still retaining a belief in God and a commitment to his Prophet.

As for the sisters’ roles in the Telangana Armed Struggle and CPI politics in Hyderabad

at this time, Jamalunnisa Baji said that “right from the beginning we were close to the left front.”

She then goes on to talk about the Progressive Writers’ Association founded in 1941 that

Makhdoom, the poet and activist I will soon discuss, used to visit regularly. In addition to the

sisters’ attendance at these meetings, Jamalunnisa Baji’s mother attended as well and some

would keep up the purdah practice by sitting behind collapsible room dividers.

108

The ritual Muslim five daily prayers. 109

Sanghatana, 173. 110 Sanghatahana, 173. 111 Biography of the Prophet of Islam.

34

Jamalunnisa Baji became a CPI member in 1946. She describes that she and her family

and friends talked of the 1942 Quit India Movement, did not work for it, but had sympathies and

from the very beginning, were with the nationalist movement. Describing the black flag

demonstration Muslim League leader Muhammad Ali Jinnah called for in protest of the largely

Hindu dominated first Indian national government created in 1946, Jamalunnisa Baji states that

her family did not follow while instead, her brothers put up a red cloth representing the CPI. The

family’s neighbors questioned this action.

Razia Begum had an advanced level of education. She did her MA in 1944 and became a

lecturer in Women’s College. In 1966 she joined the University Arts College and did her

doctorate in Persian in Iran. She notes that she had to support the family as her father had retired

and the others, most probably her brothers, were working in the CPI. She laments, “In spite of

that, we did not feel fully equal to men (178).” Baji complained, “We have a double

responsibility. Men have to do only one type of work. Whereas we do both.”

As for women involved in the revolt, there are two extremes in which their involvement

is depicted. Those are on the one hand the supportive, passive, secondary role and on the other

hand, the role of heroine of the struggle112

. Many women took part in the struggle with hopes of

greater equality for their sex.

In relation to the issue of women’s oppression, Sangari and Vaid discuss the purdah or

seclusion of upper class Muslim women or Brahmin women as invisible and structural

violence113

. Baji recalls that some of the issues discussed in the newly formed Women’s

Democratic Association were issues like purdah. Speakers such as Progressive Writers’

Association members Razia, Sajjad Zaheer and Ismat Chugtai came to speak on the issue.

112 Sangari and Vaid, 181. 113 Sangari and Vaid, 182.

35

In 1949, her husband died after which point she was asked to go underground by the

Party leadership. The CPI was banned in 1939 and after that action, party members would start

coming to her home for meetings. In 1951, A.K. Gopalan, Jyoti Basu, and Muzaffar Ahmed,

prominent CPI members from all over India, came to stay at the house opposite the sisters’

house. Their father helped them get the house and it was there where they used to hold meetings

and long discussions at night dealing with whether or not the Armed Struggle should be called

off. After that date, Baji says that she and her comrades started forming women’s groups in

which they read stories and discussed Maxim Gorky.

Lastly, a year following the end of the Armed Struggle – 1952 – Makhdoom asked Baji

to work among women by forming women’s social and economic advancement groups114

.”

To sum up, Jamalunnisa Baji and Razia Begum’s political activity and commentary on

Muslim female social life in Hyderabad suggest a commitment to progressive ideals as embodied

by their chapter of the Communist Party of India and the women’s associations, as well as

identification as being Muslim as exhibited by their critical engagement with their faith.

Makhdoom Mohiuddin – Revolutionary Urdu Poet and Activist:

Makhdoom Mohiuddin (1908-1969), popularly known as Makhdoom, and the family

friend of the Communist Party of India sisters, was a revolutionary Urdu poet and activist who

took part in the Telangana Armed Struggle and led the Comrades Association in Hyderabad city.

Makhdoom Mohiuddin, as well as other Comrades Association members, joined the CPI in 1940.

Makhdoom was its first secretary in Hyderabad city, and Raj Bahadur Gour was its assistant

secretary. Unlike Jamalunnisa Baji and Razia Begum, Makhdoom was well-acquainted with

Marxist thought and he started a Marxist study circle with some fellow revolutionaries115

. He

114 Source, 176. 115 Alam, 6.

36

was one of the signatories on the CPI agenda calling for the start of an armed struggle.Scholar

John Roosa calls Makhdoom the “most prominent Muslim antagonist to the Majlis116

.” Raj

Bahadur Gour, a close comrade of Makhdoom focuses Makhdoom's memoir on describing

Makhdoom's marrying his romantic poetry to his life of labor organizing and Communist

leadership. It is this memoir, as well as Makhdoom's poetry, that I will use to analyze Makhdoom

as a Muslim as well as a political radical.

Raj Bahadur Gour describes Makhdoom as being raised in a religious environment, “He

had to offer prayers regularly and also had to serve the faithful by sweeping the mosque and by

fetching water and so on117

.” According to a biographer named Mughni Tabassum, Makhdoom

was educated in both Arabic and Persian in addition to Hadith and the rudiments of Islamic law.

He completed lessons of the Holy Qur’an at a young and age and would say his prayers

regularly. He regularly fasted during the holy month of Ramadan, he swept the floor of the

mosque, and gave the call to prayer there as well118

. Such a description suggests his strong

commitment to Muslim religious rituals and practice. There is little data on the status of

Makhdoom's commitment to religious rituals later on in his life during his political organizing

days, however; we can draw some conclusions regarding his outlook on Islam from his poetry

immediate directly preceding, during, and after the Armed Struggle.

Haveli – The Palace (1944)

A moribund society in its death-throes is taking tribute from the dead.

There is agony, darkness and ruin all around.

How frightful and dark are these cracks in the wall!

The abode of snakes and scorpions –

Which shelter the rich and the mahajan, the obscurantist Brahmin and the hypocritical mullah119

.

116

Roosa, 549. 117

Raj Bahadur Gour, Glorious Telengana Armed Struggle, 3. 118 Tabassum in Alam, 2. 119 Raj Bahadur Gour, Glorious Telengana Armed Struggle, 5.

37

Ek nayi dunia naya Adam banaayaa jayega

Surkh parcham aur uncha ho, baghaavant zindaabad (Alam 131)

A new world, a new humanity will be fashioned

And the red flag held aloft, long live the rebellion (Alam xvii)

This poem invokes the first creation of God and the first prophet of the faith – Prophet

Adam – as the new humanity that will be made as a result of a revolution.

Dayare hind ka wo rahbar Telangana

Bana rahaa hai nai ek sehar Telangana.

Bula raha hai ba simt-e-degar Telangana

Wo inqilaab ka paighaamber Telangana.

Telangana, the one that leads India

Telangana, the creator of a new dawn

Telangana, calls for a new direction

Telangana, the herald (prophet) of revolution (Alam 130)

Makhdoom continues with the theme of a prophet, this time using that imagery to

compare Telangana as a new herald or prophet of the revolution.

Oh God of heaven and earth, the one in every heart

Behold, the sad state of your masterpiece

Leprous bodies that robes of faith cannot hide

And flames of hunger that the Prophet cannot douse120

- 1939

Here, Makhdoom tells God that while He is indeed everywhere, his ever presence is may

not matter so much as his creation is in a “sad state”. Moazzam argues that it may not have been

of Islam that Makhdoom was critical, but rather the political environment in Hyderabad and

specifically the polarized environment created by the Majlis. Moazzam further bolsters his

statement by noting that there was no evidence of any anti-Islamic sentiment in the emerging

120 Alam, 96.

38

Progressive Movement; nor did it exist in the compositions of the Progressive Writers121

. (Alam

96).

The Progressive Writers Movement originated in 1936 in Lucknow and according to its

first manifesto it sought to: Rescue literature and other arts from the priestly, academic and

decadent classes in whose hands they have degenerated so long; to bring the arts into the closest

touch with the people; and to make them the vital organ which will register the actualities of life,

as well as lead us to the future122

.” It was Makhdoom who formed the Hyderabad unit of the

Progressive Writers’ Association in 1940123

. To reiterate the above point, it was not Islam per se

that Makhdoom was so virulently lashing out against, but the very appropriation of the faith by

the chauvinistic Majlis organization that Makhdoom criticized.

Following the end of the Telangana Armed Struggle in 1951, Makhdoom remained

committed to Muslim imagery in his poems. For example, upon hearing about Martin Luther

King, Jr.’s assassination, Makhdoom wrote:

This is not the murder of one man

This is the murder of truth, equality, nobility,

…

The murder of nature’s masterpiece is the murder of God

This dusk is the “dusk of the dispossessed”

This dawn, the “dawn of Hunayn”

This is the murder of the Messiah, this if the murder of Husain124

.

Using the imagery from a historic battle the Prophet of Islam took part in as well as

alluding to the martyrdom of the Prophet’s grandson, Husain, Makhdoom shows a commitment

to religious imagery.

121

Alam, 96. 122

Hyder, 183. 123 Raj Bahadur Gour, Glorious Telengana Armed Struggle. 124 Hyder, 162.

39

Furthermore, Anwar Moazzam draws a distinction between the spiritual and the religious

as embodied by the Islamic metaphysical concept. Some analyses of Makhdoom’s poetry

identify his words evoking a spiritual longing, rather than affiliation to any Islamic metaphysical

concept125

. However, I do not subscribe to the notion of divorcing the “spiritual” from the

“religious” in the context of defining Muslim identity. To me, Muslim identity in the context of

politics in Hyderabad during this time, particularly during the Telangana Armed Struggle, could

mean an adherence to ritualistic Muslim practice, in the case of Majlis members or it could mean

giving up religious rituals as one grew older in favor of Marxism, speaking of the “spiritual” in

one’s poetry, and still organizing fellow Muslims and identifying with that community in the

case of the CPI sisters and Makhdoom Mohiuddin.

Conclusion:

So what does it mean to be Muslim? And, what were the implications of being labeled a

kafir or a communal?

Muslim identity in the context of politics in Hyderabad during this time, particularly

during the Telangana Armed Struggle, could mean an adherence to ritualistic Muslim practice, in

the case of Majlis members. Muslim identity could also mean giving up religious rituals as one

grew older in favor of Marxism, speaking of the “spiritual” in one’s poetry, and still organizing

fellow Muslims and identifying with that community in the case of the CPI sisters and

Makhdoom Mohiuddin.

Muslim solidarity between the Majlis and Muslims in the CPI did not exist. In fact, the

Comrades Association was a majority Muslim political organization that was anti-Nizam and

progressive in character.

125 Alam, 92.

40

The intersection between religion, class, and politics as examined in this paper points to

several issues that have yet to remain addressed for further research. \

“Naturally, both the Hindu and Muslim communalists divided the poor Hindus and

Muslims, between them ranged them each against the other, forgot the main enemy, the feudal

aristocracy which continued to rule the roost126

.”

Chapter 5: Conclusions

In the case of Pakistan-associated narratives, identities got articulated and framed in the

language of communitarianism that fueled an increasingly acrimonious discourse on the role of

Hindus and Muslims in the state. Indian nationalist-associated narratives followed a similar case.

This type of rhetoric was employed for politically expedient ends. In the case of Telangana,

however, it was that Muslim identity was articulated in class language and framed as intrinsic to

a class identity. While presentations of the nature of the land tenure system as Hindu peasant

versus Muslim overlord existed, the struggle itself was not communitarian in nature. In fact, a

prominent Muslim poet, Makhdoom Mohiudidn, led the struggle from the city and the

Communist Party of India was multifaith in character.

Discourse surrounding being “communal” or the phenomenon of “communalism” is

important to analyze because it can deprive legitimacy to a particular cause or organization. In

the case of Hyderabad, Indian nationalist supported narratives as well as Pakistan supported

narratives differed but also had one important thing in common – they polarized discourse to

such an extent to reinforce an antagonism among the different faith groups, Hindus and Muslims,

in Hyderabad.

The first question I posed was, “What does Telangana tell us about what has gone on

with Muslims in Hyderabad?” Telangana is significant to understand in an analysis of

126 Raj Bahadur Gour, Glorious Telengana Armed Struggle, 9.

41

Hyderabad’s history because the armed struggle in that region contributed to the forced

accession of Hyderabad to the Indian Union as communist guerilla squads attacked the Razakars

and essentially fought on the side of the Indian Union forces.

I also asked, “Was Muslim identity instrumentally invoked or was this religious identity

intrinsic to class identity?” This specific religious identity was not instrumentally invoked, but

rather it was intrinsic to class identity.

Lastly, “What is the Telangana take on the Police Action?” To an extent, this question

runs into the previous question asked about what Telangana tells us about what went on with

Muslims in Hyderabad. The Telangana Armed Struggle participants viewed the accession as a

necessary evil to rid the state of the Majlis’ paramilitary wing, the Razakars, that were

committing loot, arson, and other egregious crimes with the tacit and sometimes not so tacit

support of Hyderabad’s nizam.

To return to the extant literature on princely India, in the case of Hyderabad, a

“hollowing of the crown” that argues for a lack of agency among princes in India is not well-

suited for the Hyderabad case, in particular the nizam played a major role in affairs that went on

in the state, particularly as related to his allied political party, the Majlis Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen.

As for analysis surrounding sovereignty during this time period, I examine the period –

the Police Action – Eric Beverley’s focus. While Eric Beverley argues for a situation of layered

sovereignty, I examine the unitary nature of sovereignty as vested in the personality of the

nizam. It was, however, with the founding of the state-allied Majlis Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen that

the organization’s founder, Bahadur Yar Jang, argued for sovereignty to lay not with the

personality of the nizam, but with the Muslim community in Hyderabad as a whole. This

argument had implications for communitarian relations in the state because an increasingly

42

privileged in the state bureaucracy, though not completely dominant due to their religion,

Muslim community came to be identified as superior to other faith communities in the state. As a

result, calls rallying for Hyderabad’s independence as a sovereign Muslim state were put

forward.

There are implications for this research and analysis as I have laid it out. For instance,

what is the intersection between religious and class based identity and how does such an

intersection play a role in social movements? What happens if the opposite from this case study

happens – that religious identity is instrumental to class identity rather than intrinsic? These are

relevant questions that further research can address.

43

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